Explanatory note

This Supplementary Order Paper amends the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill to exempt all buildings that are located in low seismic risk areas (such as Auckland, Northland, and Dunedin) from the system for managing earthquake-prone buildings.

Low seismic risk areas have an extremely low risk of a severe earthquake (eg, 1 in 110,000 years in Auckland) and even if the worst case scenario earthquake were to occur, strengthening to 33% of the National Building Standard would result in almost no improvement in public safety. Furthermore, while the inclusion of buildings located in areas of low seismic risk is likely to have minimal benefits, it will impose large costs on private property owners that are forced to undertake expensive engineering assessments to prove they are compliant and face potentially financially crippling retrospective strengthening in the event that they are not. This, together with the stigma of being listed on the earthquake prone building register, will also unfairly impact the market value of properties.